he news that U.S. President Donald Trump was pushing to purchase Greenland probably didn’t take its government entirely by surprise. The United States has long harbored designs on the island—and unlike in the years after the Cold War, when Greenland receded from the geopolitical forefront, climate change has put Greenland, Iceland, and other Arctic nations back on the front pages. New sea routes are opening up through the Arctic, and mineral-rich areas of Greenland are becoming economically accessible.

Trump is not wrong about Greenland’s importance to the United States. But in his fumbling and flippant attempts to buy it, and thereby gain the United States an expanded strategic purchase, he has achieved the opposite effect, needlessly closing the door on more conventional paths to a larger U.S. presence there and insulting Denmark, one of the United States’ closest allies.

Do some Art of the Deal with Russia, Putin gets Bornholm (taken by the Reds at the end of WW2 btw) and some other shit they might want, control over, the belts maybe - Trump gets Greenland. Hell, Canada can maybe have Hans Island back. Everybody is happy, except the Danes - but who cares about them anyways..., could be a secret deal too. Let the Russkies attack first and Trump can claim "he's there only to help out with Greenland" all the while there is an agreement with the Kremlin...

Die-hard Trump haters continue to maintain that the President of the United States is in thrall to, or maybe being blackmailed by Russia’s President Putin. As a corollary, they still push the notion that Russia will corrupt the 2020 presidential election, so that if and when Trump wins, they will deny him legitimacy.

The crashing and burning of the Mueller effort to prove this thesis means nothing to the deluded dead-enders. But the stupidity of this charge is refuted by the power play President Trump’s Secretary of Energy Rick Perry carried out over the holiday weekend. Via Reuters:

“We’re helping Poland to reduce its dependence on Russian gas,” U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry told a news conference in Warsaw after meeting officials from Poland and Ukraine.

The Polish government official responsible for energy infrastructure, Piotr Naimski, said Poland, which has increased purchases of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States in recent years, would be able to send six billion cubic meters of gas to Ukraine starting from 2021 compared to the current capability of 1.5 bcm.

“We will take every effort to diversify gas supplies to Ukraine, which is now completely dependent on Russian deliveries,” Naimski told the same conference.

Perry, Naimski and Ukraine’s Secretary of National Security Oleksandr Danylyuk signed a memorandum of understanding to enhance security of gas supplies in the region via LNG supplies from the U.S. through Poland’s and Ukraine’s infrastructure which still has to be expanded.

Russia’s domination of natural gas supply to Europe, with multiple pipelines running through Ukraine, has long been a strategic weapon.

Natural gas pipelines from Russia to Europe

The threat to let Europeans freeze to death during winter months has been exercised before, and remains active, as this article entitled “Ukraine Faces a Bleak Winter as Russia Prepares to Cut Off Gas” demonstrates.

The ability of the United States to check Putin’s energy weapon is the result of the fracking boom that President Trump has unleashed. Instead of President Obama’s claim that it is impossible “to drill our way out” of energy dependence, President Trump has embraced – and strategically exploited – the mushrooming energy production that the United States is experiencing.

So, pause for a minute and ask yourself which president was behaving as if he were in Putin’s pocket? The one who protected Putin’s energy weapon against Europe (and also enriched the faltering Russian economy that mainly depends on oil and gas exports)? Or the one that checkmated Putin’s energy weapon and impoverished his economy?

Trump is playing right into Putin's pocket by getting customers of Russian natural gas to purchase their natural gas from sources other than Russia. This is also depriving Russia of income/foreign currency.

That's good for Putin, isn't it?

_________________The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.- misattributed to Alexis De Tocqueville

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